names, planes... & astronauts

Have you ever noticed how sometimes people with the same names share similar characteristics?

Up until quite recently, I believed I was not named after a specific person... though quite often people ask me if I was named after Jackie O. Just a few weeks ago, I found out Jackie O = Jacqueline Lee.

My name is Jacqueline Lee.

However, I don't feel like I'm really a Jacqueline. It sounds so formal and proper, and I'm neither formal nor proper; I quite prefer Jackie. Even the horse show announcers call me Jackie, though my name appears on all lists as Jacqueline. (Also, nothing is more awkward than a first day in class when a teacher calls out "Jacques Fleckens" because my full name is much too long to fit onto a roll sheet.)

I don't know any other Jackies. I know a Jaclyn, a Jacqueline (who insists on being called Jack-clean... imagine that, but say it with a French accent), and a Jacque. Where are all the Jackies of the world? And what is our stereotype?

In other news, I would like to learn how to fly a plane. Mostly because it would make me feel more comfortable while flying commercially. Though I fly all the time, it is something I absolutely ABHORE. Not that if I learned how to fly I'd be able to do anything in the event of inevitable disaster, but it'd make me feel better nonetheless.

I once flew with someone who announced, while the flight attendants were giving their safety demonstration about life floats, that, "There is no such thing as a water landing. It's called a plane crash."

He's probably correct, but I'd still like to think that during such an episode, I could take over the plane and land it in a way that the pilot did during the landing on the Hudson river. I couldn't, but I'd still like to believe it.

In other OTHER news, lately I've been wishing that I'd trained to become an astronaut. I'd really like to go to Saturn. I'm obsessed with space, as nerdy as that may sound, and I think it'd be pretty cool to look at the Earth like we look at the moon. I think I visit the NASA website more than any other website in my queue. But I don't think I can still become an astronaut at 25 if the only thing I know how to do is sit on a horse, find obscure answers to crossword puzzles and fingerpaint. Or can I?

If not, can I at least become a pilot for the Blue Angels?